


what the birds sing

by poisonedapple



Series: Bardic Inspiration [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 1 (Critical Role), M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2018-12-14 13:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11784285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonedapple/pseuds/poisonedapple
Summary: Vaxlan prompts I got on tumblr.1. What are you doing in my house?2. “I’m alive… I can tell because of the pain.”3. At my worst, I worry you’ll realize you deserve better.  At my best, I worry you won’t. (I’ve never been better.)Major spoilers for recent episodes.





	1. where the heart is

**Author's Note:**

> anonymous asked:  
> “What are you doing in my house?” vax and scanlan if you please.
> 
> Spoilers up to episode 103 at the very least

There is someone in Scanlan’s manor.

Which means something is Very Wrong, because no one was supposed to be in there with him but the servants and even they had all been directed to not bother him at all, because Scanlan didn’t want to be with anyone right now and that  _should_ mean no one should be able to get in.  Not if Scanlan didn’t want them in.

Scanlan pulls a chimney poker from beside his fireplace and wields it menacingly as he tip-toes stealthy out of his bedroom, down the hall and stairs, and all the way over to the kitchen, where his intruder was rummaging through his pantry.  It’s not like he hasn’t the spells to deal with whoever is disturbing him, but Scanlan thinks it’s only right to bash any intruder in the head with a long, blunt object first.

Scanlan tries to peek through the key hole - only he can’t see anything so he swings the door open with his chimney poker ready to swing out as he says, “Who dares disturb my -,”

“Hey Shorty,”

Scanlan stops dead, chimney poker missing Vax entirely.  Vax is stooped over the kitchen table, eating and looking over his shoulder at Scanlan with a grin.

“What are you doing in my house?”   Scanlan asks weakly.  Vax only smiles sheepishly.

“Why are you in my house?”

“Where else would I be?  ‘Sides, I thought it was my house too.  Said it yourself, when -,”

“That was when you were alive and -,”

“Technically, I actually was dead then.”

“- You’re dead,”  Scanlan says, ignoring Vax’s interjection.

Vax shrugs, standing.  “Never really stopped any of us, I guess?”

Scanlan can only stare accusingly.  “What are you doing in my house?”  Scanlan asks again, only this time he means:   _how long now_?

Vax doesn’t answer for a while and picks through some granola looking for cocao nibs.  “Til Vex… and not a moment longer,”  Vax admits.

Scanlan understands.  That… that could be a long time and Scanlan says as much to Vax.  Vex was always much better at taking care of herself than her brother and now taking care of herself meant taking care of her brother - which meant she’d be even better at it.

Vax smiles wryly.  “Length doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t want to live a second more in a world that her heart does not beat.  Not ever again.”

Scanlan feels goosepimples on his skin.  The intensity of the twins love for each other terrified him still.  And yet, Vax was with  _him_ in this moment.

“…She know?”

Vax nods shortly as he finally reaches for Scanlan, bending his knees and tucking Scanlan into his arms in a hard embrace.  Scanlan drops the poker to return it.

“I’m so glad to be here,” Vax rasps after a moment.

It terrifies Scanlan even more, to have even some of that love Vax feels for Vex turned towards him.  He felt paralyzed in Vax;s arms.  He’d mourned Vax for the past month.  He’d been just… gone, when Vox Machina had their collective backs turned, when Vecna had been taken care of.  It’d take him a while to get used to this again.

“Glad to have you back home,” Scanlan says when he finds it in him to speak without his voice breaking on emotion.

“Oh so it’s our home again,” Vax says with a teasing laugh.

Scanlan only squeezes Vax tighter.


	2. dearth of pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anonymous asked:  
> 18 and/or 50 vaxlan please?
> 
> 18\. “I’m alive… I can tell because of the pain.”

“Alright there shorty?”  Vax asked with mirth in his voice but concern in his eyes.

Scanlan was not alright, but then that should be obvious - he’d been impaled on the now dead horned beast that Vex had got the killing shot on.  The wound was a bit too much for Vax himself to handle, but nothing a little Pike healing couldn’t fix -  but only when she was done with the just-as-impaled but significantly less conscious Keyleth.  So Scanlan didn’t bother answering Vax and said instead,  “I’m alive… I can tell because of the pain.”

Vax chuckled, his hands rubbing circles on Scanlan’s side.  “Can’t relate.”

Scanlan’s legs kicked fruitlessly in the air, but his aim had definitely been for Vax’s ankles.

“Not funny,” Scanlan gritted out, the pain heightening in a wave.  Usually he played along with Vax’s black humor regarding his recent Dead condition, but he wasn’t in the best spirits at the moment.  But then Vax’s face fell.  The black humor was just Vax’s way of coming to terms with his increasingly less time left so Scanlan fixed it by saying, “You’ll make me jealous.  No pain, really?  I didn’t know that.”

Vax frowned, though.  “Doesn’t matter, you can right now.”

Scanlan groaned, at first because of Vax’s concern but it quickly melted into relief as Pike finally finished up with Keyleth and was quickly rushing to help him now.


	3. never been better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> twinvax said:  
> #2 of that ask you reblogged from me for vaxlan if thats good for you
> 
> 2\. At my worst, I worry you’ll realize you deserve better. At my best, I worry you won’t. (I’ve never been better.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this before a couple episodes before the finale so yeah

Vax thinks his worst is when he pranks him with a love potion, but Scanlan knows that Vax’s worst is being a ticking time bomb for death, a time bomb that ends at saving the world, simultaneously ending Vox Machina’s own insular world. Vax’s worst is that he doesn’t seem to understand how Vox Machina’s own heart will die with him, including Scanlan’s. It’s all the worst that Vax can do to him and it’ll destroy Scanlan to be sure.

But Scanlan’s worst is screaming things just to hurt the only people that love him, out of fear of that love, just to punish himself.

They deserve better than that. Vax deserves better.

At night, Scanlan hooks his arms and legs around Vax, to make sure he doesn’t disappear into the night. And Vax always clings back twice as hard.

(at my worst, i worry you’ll realize you deserve better)

Vax laughs with Scanlan, but he laughs with anyone and everyone. He’s a light-hearted, happy guy when he isn’t actively being broody.

He’d be just as happy anywhere. Probably happier, away from him.

Vax deserves better.

Scanlan tells Vax never to worry about him before every fight they walk into. Vax winks and vanishes into the shadows. It makes to hard to keep an eye on him, the way Vax hides in battle.

(at my best, i worry you won’t)

He could try harder, but there is no harder than this. No better than what he is now. Vax gets what he gets from Scanlan and he doesn’t have any better than that.

So he cycles between being too much and not enough - no better, he changes quantity not quality.

Self-sabotage.

But if Scanlan is sabotaging his own happiness, he isn’t the only one in this relationship.

(i’ve never been better)

They have so much in common, they just might last if Vax can make himself last this final battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to give me prompts on my tumblr merrygloom. Nothing nsfw though I might make it nsfw if /I/ am feeling it unless asked not to tho


End file.
